ANNALS 



OF 



PHILOSOPHY. 



DECEMBER, 1824. 



Article I. 



Biographical Sketch of the late Rev. E. D. Clarke, LL.D., 

 Professor of Mineralogy in the University of Cambridge, S\C 



Edward Daniel Clarke was born June 5, 1769, at Wil- 

 ling-don, in the county of Sussex, and was descended from a line 

 of ancestors, whose learning and abilities reflected, for a long 

 series of years, the highest credit upon the literature of their 

 country. The celebrated Dr. William Wotton was his great- 

 grandfather. His grandfather, ' mild William Clarke/ was one 

 of the most accomplished scholars of his age ; and his father, 

 the Rev. Edward Clarke, was distinguished in the same honour- 

 able career. He is represented to have been from his infancy a 

 most amusing and attractive child ; and particularly to have 

 exhibited in the narrow sphere of his father's parish, the same 

 talent for playful conversation and narrative, which ever after- 

 wards distinguished him in the various and extensive circles 

 through which he moved. He showed, when very young, a 

 decided inclination to those objects of science which were the 

 favourite studies of his later years. Having received the rudi- 

 ments of his education at Uckfield, a small town within his 

 Father's parish of Buxted, under Mr. Gerison, who had been his 

 grandfather's curate, and his father's preceptor, he was removed, 

 when somewhat more than ten years old, to the grammar-school 

 of Tunbridge, at that time conducted by Dr. Vicesimus Knox. 

 But his progress here was not very satisfactory : his attention 

 appears to have been engrossed by various attractive subjects, 

 some of a scientific nature, which were altogether inimical to his 

 progress in classical literature. In the year 1/86, when only 

 sixteen years of age, he obtained, through the kindness of Dr. 

 Beadon, then Master of Jesus College, and now the venerable 

 Bishop of Bath and Wells, the situation of Chapel Clerk in that 

 Society. 



The three years which Edward Clarke spent in College, before 

 he took his Bachelor's Degree, present no incidents of life, or 



Neii Seiics, vol. viii. 2 d 



